Nokia's disruption

Much have already been written about the recently announced partnership between Nokia and Microsoft. A clear win for Microsoft, for Nokia it is a gamble beyond recklessness.

Developers are probably one of the most important groups for any mobile ecosystem. Google have been pampering Android developers since the start, and the popularity of Android among developers is one of the top reasons for Android being were it is today. Nokia on the other hand just gave their developers the good old dagger in the back. I suspect Nokia currently ranks low on being the kind of work environment employees go the extra mile. For the tasks ahead, they will need people who really believe in what they are doing but there are always other more compelling job opportunities for the shining stars at Nokia. Jobs which utilizes their current talent and interests.

Now, it is either Steve's (Balmer) way, or the highway. Having daggered their own ecosystem and dismissed Android, there is really just one choice; Windows Phone. Placing your army's front against the direction of the fight, and its rear against a coarse river is historically known to be an effective way to focus your soldiers state of mind and commit them solely to the task ahead. However Nokia's army is one of hired soldiers, which is not of the same caliber as the army that gave the Soviets a hammering in the Winther war. They just might choose to go for the swim. Protests at Nokia might be a sign for things to come.

Getting this giant organisation to fully commit to the new direction and learn the new tools of the trade is no small task. All this must be done while downsizing at a large scale. In paralell to this the world is not waiting for Nokia to catch up. HTC, LG, Samsung, Huawei, Apple and Google are inventing and delivering at full speed. In the other end fewer people will probably be buying Nokia's current line-up of phones; who would want to buy a product that the manufacturer itself says is a relic? The coming months will probably skyrocket the Android and IOS share of phones, at the cost of Nokia. In this scenario will Nokia manage to release "killer products" before going bust?

Stephen Elob(picture) says he is going to disrupt Apple and Google with this Microsoft partnership, he just might end up disrupting his own company.

(Picture by Luca Sartoni (Distributed under Creative Commons license)

MSI Wind Top AE2220 and Ubuntu Linux

Just purchased a MSI Wind Top AE2220M and intend to run Linux on it (Ubuntu 10.04 LTS). Can't find much useful experience on the combination available online - hopefully it is a good pair. If you are interesting in seeing how they get along, keep in touch, I will post my experiences in a few days.

Update: A few weeks have passed without me giving my experiences, luckily not because of problems, but it sort of worked right out of the box.

As some of the comments below highlights the wireless works better after running an update. I got it to work on the original install by tweaking some of the settings on my AP (frequency and setting it to g-only). After the update it did better and I restored the original settings on my AP. Still it does not seem to operate on 802.11N. For me 802.11G is fine (for now).

The multi-touch screen does not work out of the box either. I did not buy this machine for this feature anyway, and i do not like finger marks all over the screen, thus i do not plan to do anything with this. My guess is that Ubuntu 10.10 will solve this one, as it is one of the focus areas of that release.

Actually - the only manual improvement i did to it was changing the Boot-splash to the screens native resolution. No practical difference in doing this, but it makes the (very short) boot look very good :)

You have to edit this file:

/etc/default/grub

Add the following two lines:

GRUB_GFXMODE=1920x1080x32

GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep

Then run:

# update-grub

I would absolutely recommend this machine if you are looking for something to run Linux on.

Thats it! Hope you enjoy this machine as much as I do.

Update:

Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick has a sound related problems. To fix it:

# sudo echo "options snd-hda-intel model=auto" >> /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

# alsa force-reload

I am also glad to report that the touch screen i working out of the box in Maverick.

Exchange ActiveSync client for Android

Recently a friend of mine has been trying to use his Android phone to connect to his company Exchange server. Since HTC phones ship with support for Exchange, this seems like a trivial task to accomplish; reality regrettably has a few suprises up its sleeve. As It turned out, the built in exchange support did not work with the particular configuration of his companies e-mail server. Android market until recently offered a couple other options. The most promising was roadsync, but since payable apps are unavailable in Norway we were out of luck. Recently a new app surfaced on Android market; "Touchdown" is a comprehensive Exchange ActiveSync client, that was easy to set up, and offers good functionality. It is not free, but offers a way to buy it outside of the Android market. To all of you tied to an Exchange server and are living in the shadow of Android markets payable apps, Touchdown might be your saviour as well.

http://www.nitrodesk.com

USB Modem (Nokia N95) with Acer Aspire ONE

I recently received my new Acer Aspire One 110l and must say i am increasingly falling in love with this machine. It's easy and usable out of the box, but I missed the ability to use it with my Nokia N95 as a HSDPA/3G/Edge/GPRS modem.

The main reason for the One's problem is that is missing the kernel module (cdc-acm) and an easy program to dial up. I will try to explain the steps necessary to make the N95 (and probably other devices) usable with the One. I hope the procedure and kernel module below is helpful. It certainly works flawless for me, and i hope it can help you as well. If you get it to work with other devices, please post a comment below.

Procedure

1. Compile, or download the module cdc-acm.
   I will not go through the procedure for compiling the module, but supply the module I have already compiled. This one should work as long as an update does not change the kernel version for the One. This is rather unlikely, and should it happen i will try to release an updated version shortly. Download cdc-acm
   here (box.net)
   
   
2. Move the module to the right directory (/lib/modules/2.6.23.9lw/usb/class/):
   
   Open a terminal:
   Alt+F2 -> terminal ->enter
   
   [user@localhost ~]$ su -
   [user@localhost ~]# mkdir -p /lib/modules/2.6.23.9lw/usb/class
   [user@localhost ~]# cp /path/to/downloaded/module /lib/modules/2.6.23.9lw/usb/class/
   [user@localhost ~]# mknod /dev/ttyACM0 c 166 0
   [user@localhost ~]# depmod -a
   [user@localhost ~]# modprobe cdc-acm
   
   
3. The next step is to install an easy-to-use dialup application. I have chosen gnome-ppp for this job.
   
   [user@localhost ~]$ su -
   [user@localhost ~]# yum install gnome-ppp
   Answer Y to any questions
4. Configure gnome-ppp:
   
   • Start gnome-ppp Alt+F2 -> write "gnome-ppp" hit "Run" and enter your password.
   • Username: (providers username)
     
   • Password: (providers password)
     
   • Phone number: *99#
   • Push -> "Setup"
   • Under the Tab: "Modem"
     
   • Device: /dev/ttyACM0
   • Type: USB Modem
   • Speed: 460800
   • Under the Tab "Networking"
   • Check: Manual DNS (Automatic does not seem to work)
     
   • DNS 1: 208.67.222.222 (OpenDNS)
     
   • DNS2: 208.67.220.220 (OpenDNS)
     
   • Under the Tab: "Options"
   • Check "Dock in notification area"
   • Push Close

That should hopefully do it. Connect your modem and hit "Connect" in gnome-ppp

Surf's up!